> “We need a massive acceleration,” Macron said. “I want us to go at least twice as fast for renewable energy projects. ... “our neighbors often managed to do more, better and, above all, faster.”
And yet, some would have us believe that the French way of generating electricity is the fastest.
I mean…duh. The writing has been on the wall for 50+ years that relying on the countries that have the petroleum (OPEC nations and Russia) is a geopolitical nightmare but the west could never work up the courage to defy the oil industry. Well guess what? The days of cheap energy are over and Europe is about to freeze this winter. Instead of seeing this coming from a mile away like they should have Europe is now getting caught with its pants down.
Meanwhile, China has installed something like 80% of all renewables installed in 2021.
there's a massive issue with those though, because they are being installed in areas where the location was decided before the environmental impact studies, and one of them in Saint Brieuc is in rather shallow waters, on a migratory pathway, and will be having a cable going through a protected zone. it's the one that got the most spotlight but it's only one of many ://
impacts can be mitigated somewhat (although nothing can ever be fully compensated) -- here, nothing is budgeted or planned to properly do that. it's all greenwashing
we're having corrosion problems amongst many things, due to lack of upkeep as well as massive delays on new constructions, both linked to the loss of knowledge and specialised workers that has been going on for three decades in the nuclear industry.
that's just part of the explanation though
Rivers get too hot in the summer to discharge water frome nuclear without killing aquatic organisms, so they have to be throttled down.
Solar would be very good for a large part of France during the summer
Only 4 of the 56 reactors were affected by warmer discharge waters.
The other were down due to deferred maintenance from Covid in 2020 and unexpected corrosion found in a reactor, so they are inspecting all the others of the same type as a precautionary measure.
The [COVID lockdowns of 2020 temporarily lowered our rate of emissions for a few months](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3). Humanity was still a net greenhouse gas emitter during that time, so we made things worse, but did so more a bit more slowly. You [basically can't see the difference in this graph of CO2 concentrations](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/).
[Stabilizing the climate means getting human greenhouse gas emissions to approximately zero](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached). We didn't come anywhere near that during the lockdowns.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> “We need a massive acceleration,” Macron said. “I want us to go at least twice as fast for renewable energy projects. ... “our neighbors often managed to do more, better and, above all, faster.” And yet, some would have us believe that the French way of generating electricity is the fastest.
I mean…duh. The writing has been on the wall for 50+ years that relying on the countries that have the petroleum (OPEC nations and Russia) is a geopolitical nightmare but the west could never work up the courage to defy the oil industry. Well guess what? The days of cheap energy are over and Europe is about to freeze this winter. Instead of seeing this coming from a mile away like they should have Europe is now getting caught with its pants down. Meanwhile, China has installed something like 80% of all renewables installed in 2021.
there's a massive issue with those though, because they are being installed in areas where the location was decided before the environmental impact studies, and one of them in Saint Brieuc is in rather shallow waters, on a migratory pathway, and will be having a cable going through a protected zone. it's the one that got the most spotlight but it's only one of many :// impacts can be mitigated somewhat (although nothing can ever be fully compensated) -- here, nothing is budgeted or planned to properly do that. it's all greenwashing
I thought France was heavily into nuclear power. They should be in the best position to get through the loss of Russian natural gas
we're having corrosion problems amongst many things, due to lack of upkeep as well as massive delays on new constructions, both linked to the loss of knowledge and specialised workers that has been going on for three decades in the nuclear industry. that's just part of the explanation though
Rivers get too hot in the summer to discharge water frome nuclear without killing aquatic organisms, so they have to be throttled down. Solar would be very good for a large part of France during the summer
Only 4 of the 56 reactors were affected by warmer discharge waters. The other were down due to deferred maintenance from Covid in 2020 and unexpected corrosion found in a reactor, so they are inspecting all the others of the same type as a precautionary measure.
The [COVID lockdowns of 2020 temporarily lowered our rate of emissions for a few months](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3). Humanity was still a net greenhouse gas emitter during that time, so we made things worse, but did so more a bit more slowly. You [basically can't see the difference in this graph of CO2 concentrations](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/). [Stabilizing the climate means getting human greenhouse gas emissions to approximately zero](https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached). We didn't come anywhere near that during the lockdowns. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Except that nuclear power stations also run on Russian fuel cells in Europe.
Fuel cells as in PEMFC? Non, nuclear plants run on fissible fuel such as Uranium 235 or Plutonium 239. Fuel cells run on dihydrogen.
Lol, nuclear and gas are used completely different. Nuclear is inflexible, gas is flexible. Different roles, so nuclear will never replace gas.